“When I look in the mirror I don’t see a quitter,” Tyson Fury says as, having suffered the first defeat of his professional career in a dramatic world heavyweight title fight against Oleksandr Usyk in May, he is about to step back into the fire of their rematch this Saturday night in Riyadh. “I see a man who would do anything to keep going. If I get knocked down nine times, I’ll get up 10. If I didn’t want to do that, I wouldn’t be a boxer, I’d be doing something else, like playing darts. But this is my job.”
Fury and Usyk dug into the reserves of their resilience and the Ukrainian won a split decision. Usyk was losing the bout narrowly when, in a remarkable ninth round, he hurt Fury and looked close to stopping his much bigger opponent. But Fury is a fighter to the core and being rocked repeatedly would never deter him from stepping back into the ring.
